Shelf Life
by Dovewings.of.Narnia
Summary: Sometimes, Annabeth just needs to get away from everything and clear her head. Nico is the last person she would ever expect to understand this - but he just might surprise her. Oneshot; post Lost Hero; hints of Percabeth; Annabeth/Nico friendship.


_A/N: Stupid Hera. How DARE she mess with Percabeth? Anyway... This is my little tribute to Annabeth and how she must be feeling. I included Nico because a) he's my favorite character, b) I needed dialogue, and c) I figured he would be the best one to understand Annabeth's feelings, due to the situation with Bianca. And Annabeth and Nico are just friends here, okay? There is NO shipping of... Nicabeth, I guess. :P That would be weird. And it would interfere with Percabeth, making me no better then Hera. *Horror* _

_I'm sorry if either of them seem a bit OOC. This is my first PJatO fic. I tried. No flames, please. (:_

_Disclaimer: I do not own Camp Half-Blood. I do not own Annabeth Chase. I do not own Nico di Angelo. I do not own Percy Jackson. I do not own France. (In case you were wondering.) I also do not own the Camp Half-Blood campfire songs. (If I did, I probably would not have had to look for 40 minutes to find their names. -_-) Basically, I own nothing._

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><p>Evenings were the worst for Annabeth. The rest of the time, she had things to do—work on the <em>Argo II<em>, try to decide where the Roman camp might be, plot a course to Greece. But when evening came, Bunker Nine was closed up. Charts, maps, and compasses were put away. The campers gathered for dinner and then for the bonfire.

Annabeth still went to the fire most nights, but sometimes the pain just got to be too much, and she had to get away. She never said a thing to anyone but Malcolm. To him, she gave the excuse of going to bed early, an idea he welcomed.

Everyone at Camp Half-Blood was worried about Annabeth. It wasn't that she openly complained, or moped around, or even cried when anyone could see her. It was the intense, fixated way she went about her work. She never smiled anymore. Everything had to be a means to an end. Anything that wasn't—showering, sleeping, and even eating—had to be forced upon her. It had been weeks since she'd designed any buildings or read anything that didn't have to do with either Gaea or the Romans.

She was quietly and slowly dying inside, and no one knew how to help her.

On the nights she didn't go to the bonfire, Annabeth went to the ocean, a place she stanchly avoided when in anyone else's company. A ways down the beach from where the Fourth of July fireworks were held each year, Annabeth and Percy had discovered an old wooden dock. It was past where the campers usually went, so you either had to know it was there and be looking for it or be totally distracted and stumble over it by accident. (With them, it had been the latter.)

The dock was just far enough away from the arena that Annabeth couldn't hear the campers. (Unless they got especially loud on "I Am My Own Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandpa.") It went far enough over the water that it was always windy, and Annabeth found a restless sort of comfort in sitting at the very end, with her knees up to her chest and her hair, always falling out of her ponytail by then, blowing around her face.

She'd been coming for almost a week straight this time, and she had a feeling Malcolm was started to suspect that she wasn't sleeping. "You're getting so _thin_, Annabeth," he kept saying. "Thin and pale. Please, Percy would want you to take care of yourself."

Annabeth had quickly grown tired of explaining that she was _trying_, but she truly wasn't hungry, and no matter how tired she was, sleep never came easily. And once she'd finally managed to drift off, nightmares—real ones, not prophetical ones—came to haunt her. She wished they were prophetical, that someone (Hera) would tell her where the _heck_ the Roman camp (and more importantly, Percy) was, but nothing changed.

Malcolm couldn't possibly understand, because Annabeth herself didn't understand. She knew she should be eating and sleeping and going to bonfires and letting herself have a _little_ fun, but she just couldn't do it.

Hiding on the dock was much easier then going through another night pretending she had everything under control.

Annabeth sat with one leg tugged underneath her and the other bent at the knee. She'd grabbed her black sweat jacket before coming down, so at least she wasn't chilled by the wind. It was especially fierce tonight.

The sun was about to set, and Annabeth was guessing the fire had just begun. With luck, she had an hour or so before anyone was going to come looking for her. She closed her eyes, breathing in the ocean scent that unfailingly reminded her of Percy. She didn't let herself remember times here with him or try to picture him or wonder where he was or even _think_. She just shut down her mind and breathed.

Annabeth was so removed from the world that she nearly jumped out of her skin when a THUMP sounded from behind her. She gasped and spun around, sending blonde curls flying into her eyes. A figure was stumbling back and forth at the base of the dock. He crashed into one of the support posts and fell backwards, cursing loudly as he landed on his backside. A ghost of a smile passed across Annabeth's face, along with a snort that might have once resembled a laugh. The noise drew the newcomer's attention as he struggled back to his feet.

"Annabeth?"

He straightened, reveling his identity.

"Oh. Nico."

He shuffled within a yard or two of her, pushing his hands into the pockets of the old aviator jacket he always wore. In fact, he looked basically the same as when she had last seen him, just after Percy went missing: Messy dark hair, anxious dark eyes, black jeans, and his Stygian iron sword at his hip.

"Er… yeah." He shifted awkwardly from foot to foot. "I didn't mean to… disturb you. I was just… When I shadow-traveled, I ended up…"

"It's fine," Annabeth said flatly, too tired from a day of locking things inside to truly care. "Just don't tell Malcolm. Or anyone else, for that matter."

"Uh… Okay."

A moment of awkward silence passed. Annabeth spun back to the water and pulled her legs in, Indian-style. She set a hand on each knee, tipped her face back, and closed her eyes. Once more, she took in a deep breath. As she exhaled, she imagined every painful memory and every urge to cry slipping out, flying over the sea and disappearing.

"Um, Annabeth?"

She wrinkled her brow. She'd assumed Nico would leave and was a little annoyed that he hadn't.

"What?"

"What are you doing, exactly?"

She sighed and let her shoulders slump. She was sitting and he was still standing, so she had to crane her neck upward to see his face. She was ashamed to feel tears in her eyes as she demanded, "What does it look like I'm doing?" Her voice cracked. "I'm trying to get a grip." A shudder ran through her, and she squeezed her eyes shut. Pinching the bridge of her nose, she forced in several deep breaths, but they weren't helping. Her body trembled and she pressed her lips together, so tightly it hurt.

"Oh."

Annabeth made a noise that sounded something like a cross between a sarcastic laugh, a scream, and a grunt. "Yeah. _Oh_."

Nico squatted down and put a hand on her shoulder. Annabeth went stiff as a board, and he quickly removed it. She did her best to ignore him as she pulled herself back under control. Only one tear managed to escape as she reopened her eyes, and she rubbed it away with her jacket sleeve, focusing on the water and hoping he hadn't seen.

"Sorry," Nico said.

She twisted her neck around to look at him again. He did look sorry, in addition to uncomfortable and unbalanced as he squatted on the balls of his feet.

"You're going to fall over," Annabeth informed him. It was the first thing that popped into her head. At least it didn't make her want to scream and cry.

"Huh?" Nico looked down at himself. "Oh. Can I… sit?"

Annabeth rolled her still-watery eyes. "By all means. Make yourself at home."

Nico either didn't catch the sarcasm in her voice or didn't care, because he flopped to his seat. "Thanks," he muttered. There was another long silence.

"It hurts," Nico finally said. "When somebody you care about goes away or—"

"He is _not_ dea—"

"Did I _say_ dead? No. I said 'gone away'."

Annabeth shut her mouth, a slight flush infusing her cheeks with color for the first time in several days. Nico stared back at her impassively, his eyes unreadable. For the first time since he'd arrived, Annabeth felt a prickle of guilt.

"Bianca," she said, then immediately wished she hadn't. Nico looked kind of dangerous, sitting there so still and collected when he obviously should be hurting. _Do I look like that?_

"Bianca," Nico repeated in a soft voice. The tension eased out of his shoulders, and he looked like a little boy again, not a battle-hardened demigod who was prone to calling skeletons out of the ground and had boldly declared himself the ghost king.

"I'm sorry," Annabeth whispered. "I… That was… thoughtless."

"It's over," Nico said, his voice reflecting that same quiet pain Annabeth had been carrying around since Percy disappeared. "There's nothing you can do, so why dwell on it?"

Annabeth hesitated. She and Nico had never been especially close, so the first comment that popped into her head—"Geez, when did you get so good at using logic?"—probably would have been a bad choice. Instead, she went with, "I'm still sorry." She reached out and touched his hand, drawing his eyes up to hers. "Sometimes what you need is for somebody to just see your pain and acknowledge it without pitying you; see how hard you're working to keep going and be sorry, even if it can't do any good or change what happened."

"I see how hard you're working, Annabeth. I'm sorry."

She withdrew her hand and smiled, a real smile this time, although it was sad and pathetic compared to how she used to laugh with Percy.

"Me too, Nico."

The next silence wasn't awkward, although the knot Annabeth was getting in her back from sitting twisted around was. She slowly rotated so she was facing Nico completely. He was looking past her to the ocean.

"This is pretty peaceful, huh?"

Once again, Annabeth was surprised. She'd never considered Nico di Angelo, Son of Hades, to be someone who appreciated _peace_. Maybe it didn't have to do with who you were, but rather what you'd been through. The quiet pain inside of her appreciated quiet. Maybe he was the same way.

"Yeah. I come here when I can't…" She paused. Nico turned from the water to watch her, not expectantly but patiently, like he honestly wanted to know why she came and what she was feeling. "When I can't take any more of having it all together," she rushed out. "I'm sick of being pitied as the girl who lost her boyfriend. I want _action_ from the others, not sideways looks. Out here, I can just deal with stuff and not have people ask me 'are you okay?' over and over again."

"So I basically showed up and ruined that."

The two of them exchanged small smiles, the relief of wry humor in the midst of a serious talk. "No. You haven't asked me if I'm okay. Just what I was doing."

"Annabeth…"

"Hm?"

Nico focused on her completely. "Percy… He'll remember you. I'm _sure_ of it." His voice was firm on the last sentence, like he was announcing he was sure the sky was blue.

Annabeth snorted. "_Now _you sound just like everyone else. 'Don't worry, Annabeth!' 'Percy will be fine, Annabeth!' 'We'll get him back, Annabeth!' " She laughed darkly. "I'm not an idiot, Nico. Life is _not_ a fairytale. We didn't get Luke back. We didn't get Castor back. We didn't get Lee back. We didn't get Beckendorf back. We didn't get Silena back." Her voice rose an octave. "Sometimes things just don't work out. I _get_ that. I've seen it every _day_!"

"That's not what I meant," Nico argued. "I've seen how cruel life is, too. I'm just saying… Don't dig a hole before you have a casket. Percy's not dead or poisoned or possessed by a Titan. We have the chance to find him. You have the chance to… make it right."

The anger drained away as Annabeth stared into Nico's earnest eyes. Behind the curtain of pain that she was only now realizing had always been there was an honest conviction in his friends: both her and Percy.

"I've wondered a thousand times what it might be like," Annabeth admitted. She hadn't actually meant to open her mouth, so that fact that she'd said anything, in addition to how raw and miserable her voice sounded, startled her. "What he'll look like, what he'll say, what he'll do." Her voice cracked again, but it didn't lead to tears. She'd reached a point that hurt too _much_ to cry. "A thousand times, I've written out my response in my head and then changed it. What I am supposed to say? 'Do you remember me?' 'Hey, Seaweed Brain, how's it going?' 'You _idiot_, where the heck have you been?' "

"If you want to jog his memory, I'd stick in a 'Seaweed Brain' and go with the last one."

Rather then being angry, Annabeth let out a low, painful chuckle. Now tears stung her eyes. Her gaze had drifted down to the tips of her shoes, and she looked back up at Nico. "And what if I do? What if I act like he's been _just_ been missing and hasn't had his memory wiped, and then he stares at me like I'm insane? I couldn't take acting like everything's normal and not having Percy respond."

There was a long pause. It was getting dark, and it was harder for Annabeth to see Nico. He was looking at the ocean again, apparently considering what to say. "Well. That _would_ suck."

Annabeth let out another of her weird half-laughs, mixed with a few tears. "Exactly. There is no simple fix for this. I can't make a good plan." She sighed. "Which is another reason I come out here. When I'm not getting a grip, I'm making and remaking plan after plan." She shook her head. "The only one I've been able to solidify is what I'll do if things _don't_ work out."

"And what is that?"

"Start over," Annabeth said instantly.

She saw the look of alarm on Nico's face and hastened to add, "Not start over like: stab myself and go be reborn."

He relaxed a little. "Okay, good. I don't need to confiscate your knife."

She smiled weakly again. "No. Start over like: go far away from Half-Blood Hill and all that it entails."

Nico frowned. "I'm pretty sure you can't run away from being a demigod. Trust me, I've tried."

"No. But look: there's a Roman camp. There _can_ be other places that are safe for us. The second camp is still somewhere in the US. What about all the demigods overseas? We've been sending out satyrs, but it's still an awful long way to travel every summer." Annabeth looked past Nico at the trees, where she could almost see her half-hopeful, half-defeated fantasy coming to life.

"I could go to France or somewhere and start a place just like here, where kids from all over Europe or even Asia could come in the summer and train. I'd design the whole place, and maybe the gods would give me some magic to protect the borders. Preferably not by turning anyone into a tree, but, you know. Whatever works." She smiled sadly. "I would be an ocean away from here, so I wouldn't be Annabeth-who-was-Luke's-friend-until-he-turned-Titan-and-then-Percy-came-along-but-oops-he-totally-forgot-her-so-now-she's-alone. I'd just be Annabeth, somebody confused and lonely kids could trust and look up to, cut off from all ties to hurtful memories."

Nico blinked several times. "That's… quite a name."

"Thank you," Annabeth returned, a little embarrassed that she'd let all that slip. She was just so tired of not having anyone to talk to.

"I bet your camp would be amazing," Nico said softly.

"Thank you," Annabeth repeated, much warmer this time. She fell silent, surprised to find that a little of the empty space inside of her was closing up from companionship and the feeling that someone understood and cared about what she was going through.

"You could come," she said.

Nico lifted his head sharply. "What?"

Once again, she'd said something without meaning to. "I… To France, or wherever. You could come to my demigod camp."

Nico nodded slowly, letting his gaze roll over the water before returning to her. "What about being cut off from all painful memories?" Once again, it didn't sound impatient or demanding, but like he honestly wanted to understand.

"Well… Camp Half-Blood is my home. I guess having one _little_ tie couldn't hurt. And there's no way anyone could get wrong ideas about Hades with you around." Annabeth considered how that last part might have sounded. "I mean—"

"I get it," Nico said gently. "I'd love to come. If not full time, at least to visit. To remind you of _good_ memories. If you have any of me, that is," he added.

"I do," Annabeth said. She wished she could name some examples, but none came to mind. All she knew what that when she thought of Nico—at least after tonight—it was always going to be with the warm feeling that came from having a friend who understood her. "I definitely do."

Nico smiled at her, and Annabeth knew he felt the same way. She wondered why the extent of the hurt Nico was carrying around had never occurred to her before. _Maybe it takes really losing your everything to even begin to grasp how it feels_.

"Annabeth?"

"Yeah?"

"It's getting dark."

"Oh." Annabeth blinked. It was. In fact, she couldn't even really see the woods anymore, only a vague, looming shadow. "Did you tell anyone you were coming?"

"I Iris-Messaged Chiron." Nico was just a silhouette now, but she saw him cock his head. "Did you tell anyone you were coming here?"

"I told Malcolm I was going to bed."

He snorted and slowly got to his feet. "Then I guess we better get back to camp. With luck, we can catch some of 'Down by the Aegean'." He reached down a hand to her.

Annabeth took it, riding his pull until she was standing. "Whoopee. The highlight of my evening."

Nico chuckled. "I thought so."

Side by side, they walked toward the end of the dock.

"Nico?"

"Huh?"

"Thanks. You know, for… getting it."

"No problem." He hesitated. "Annabeth… Your shelf life sounds great. Really, it does. But don't give up, okay? I still think Percy will remember you."

Annabeth was quiet for a long minute. As they stepped off the end of the dock, she finally collected herself enough to whisper, "I won't." It was so soft, she wasn't even sure Nico heard her, but he didn't ask again.

"Race you to camp!" Nico said suddenly.

"What?" Annabeth asked in surprise. It was so out of character for Nico—and so like something Percy would have said—she didn't know how to respond.

"If you want to," Nico added, back to his own shyer tone.

Annabeth considered it for a minute before she repeated, "I won't," even softer then before. In a normal tone, she said, "Bring it on, Ghost Boy."

"One, two, three… go!"

As the two of them flew into the trees, Annabeth let herself laugh. It still wasn't quite the giggle she'd had when Percy was around, but it sounded a lot livelier then it had the past few weeks.

Her laugh sounded almost alive again.


End file.
